THE South African Revenue Service (SARS) is planning to pay more attention to ensuring that medium and smaller companies, and those in the “cash economy”, pay their taxes. This comes after several years in which the focus has been mainly on tackling non-compliance in the large business sector.

SARS group executive Randall Carolissen said the revenue service would shift some of its attention to the cash-based economy and medium and small companies because “we have seen considerable churn in that segment in the levels of compliance and the levels of payment, and we have seen some inexplicable behaviour”.

SARS is busy with a range of initiatives to close gaps in the tax system, particularly the base erosion and profit shifting initiative that tax authorities are pursuing globally. However, PWC director Kyle Mandy said although there was still a significant “tax gap”, the base erosion and profit shifting was not where the tax gap is — rather it is with small and medium-sized businesses and the cash economy.

i think they have a long way to regulate something like bitcoin and prevent evasion which are occuring in mny other place already , let alone africa with their ancient infrastructure

The absence of infrastructure is not always bad. You can "leapfrog" to a better technology.Lot of areas in Africa don't have traditional wired telephones. However, they now have access to mobile telephones.Similarly, they might not have bank accounts but m-pesa is a hit.

Its about time they start doing this as cash only businesses are flourishing and hardly any of them pay taxes.

We all hate taxes but what is even worse than paying taxes is to see others who do not, resulting in your own tax burden increasing as the government has to find ways to increase their revenue and this usually means increased taxes.

For many there is no way past taxes as it either gets deducted directly from your salary and or you work in a sector and or industry that is already well regulated so little chance of getting away with not paying and or paying less than what is due. So in order for taxes to be 'fair' everybody have to pay their dues. If they do, it might result in the overall tax burden decreasing [wishful thinking].

I read an article awhile back on the taxes in South Africa where they analysed how many were paying how much and it was crazy. I will see if I can dig it up. According to that article, and I speak under correction, something like 2% of the taxpayers contribute about 75% of the tax revenue. So clearly there is a major problem.

Therefore, based on this adjustment, approximately 3,2 million people were responsible for payment of 99% of all income tax in 2010/11. Approximately 2,1 million people paid 92% of all income tax and 1,4 million people, adjusted from 1,25 million, paid 82% of all income tax.

Therefore, based on this adjustment, approximately 3,2 million people were responsible for payment of 99% of all income tax in 2010/11. Approximately 2,1 million people paid 92% of all income tax and 1,4 million people, adjusted from 1,25 million, paid 82% of all income tax.

We need to make an easier path to citizenship... Set up a system to register all that are here who are not citizens and tax their incomes. If they can pay taxes and live without public assistance and commit no crime for 3 years then make them permanent citizens.

If the rules work as planned, they will help ensure big companies pay tax on profits where they are earned, boosting revenues for governments, particularly in larger countries. Advocates say the stricter rules will make for fairer competition between small and large companies, since the latter gain an advantage by being better able to avoid tax.

The international effort was launched in 2012 as governments struggled to contain a surge in deficit-spending that followed the financial crisis and the global recession.